WI: Mitterrand dies in 1982

[Hendryk]

In OTL, François Mitterrand died in January 1996, aged 79. The strange thing is, he had been diagnosed in 1981 with an incurable form of cancer that ought to have killed him within a few months (something that was only revealed in the 1990s), and doctors are at a loss how to explain his longevity.
So WI his condition had worsened as expected, and he had died in 1982, less than a year after getting elected? What difference do you think it would have made for France and the rest of the world?

This idea came as I was watching a documentary about the guy on Arte last night. The footage from his funeral was fairly surreal; next to the expected figures such as Helmut Kohl, in attendance at the church service were Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat... Of course you also had, rubbing elbows at the private funeral, his wife, his two sons, his mistress and his illegitimate daughter.